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Late to the game

LateToTheGame

LateToTheGame

New Member
Hey all - I'm 60 (close to 61), and in grad school for my counseling degree. I've spent my entire life with men (and a boy) on the spectrum without any official diagnoses, and while I always felt like I didn't fit in with the rest of the world, I thought maybe it was due to being used to, and having adapted to, their way of being. I was diagnosed with complex PTSD a few years back, and recently began seeing so much overlap in symptoms between cPTSD, autism, and ADHD. Yet, when I took a class on Neurodiversity 2 weeks ago, reading Jenara Nerenberg and Devon Price, I still felt kind of gob-smacked to see that the descriptions of female-presenting folks on the spectrum described me better than cPTSD! The more I read about it, the more I'm like, "Oh YEAH! I used to do that as a kid, but it wasn't okay, so I learned to... MASK! There's even a name for THAT!" I thought I was just a misfit, a bad kid, and an inappropriately socialized adult. I feel a load has been lifted off my shoulders, that I don't have to TRY to be what I'm not anymore! I have advocated for that with the boy/men in my life, but somehow never applied it to myself. What a relief!

I'm really wanting to find a community of people who understand this "different way of being," but since I'm a grad student, I'm not sure how much time I'll have to dedicate to this. I'm just grateful to know you're all here, for when I DO have time. Thank you!
 
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Hello and welcome to the forum! I think you'll like the community here. And don't worry if you can't be on all of the time. We're always open and threads here have long attention spans!
 
Welcome from a fellow grad student. I appreciate having this as one of several AS/ND communities that I'm a part of and hope you like it here as well.
 
I'm 66 and was not diagnosed until my mid-fifties.
There are quite a few of us here that weren't diagnosed until later in life.
Glad to have you aboard! :)
 
LateToTheGame said:
Hey all - I'm 60 (close to 61), and in grad school for my counseling degree. I've spent my entire life with men (and a boy) on the spectrum without any official diagnoses, and while I always felt like I didn't fit in with the rest of the world, I thought maybe it was due to being used to, and having adapted to, their way of being. I was diagnosed with complex PTSD a few years back, and recently began seeing so much overlap in symptoms between cPTSD, autism, and ADHD. Yet, when I took a class on Neurodiversity 2 weeks ago, reading Jenara Nerenberg and Devon Price, I still felt kind of gob-smacked to see that the descriptions of female-presenting folks on the spectrum described me better than cPTSD! The more I read about it, the more I'm like, "Oh YEAH! I used to do that as a kid, but it wasn't okay, so I learned to... MASK! There's even a name for THAT!" I thought I was just a misfit, a bad kid, and an inappropriately socialized adult. I feel a load has been lifted off my shoulders, that I don't have to TRY to be what I'm not anymore! I have advocated for that with the boy/men in my life, but somehow never applied it to myself. What a relief!

I'm really wanting to find a community of people who understand this "different way of being," but since I'm a grad student, I'm not sure how much time I'll have to dedicate to this. I'm just grateful to know you're all here, for when I DO have time. Thank you!
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Welcome, you are not alone here. As others have related about themselves, I was diagnosed at age 60. I was always shunted aside, a social outcast and social misfit, and when I tried to mask I failed miserably. Depending on the era, I was just "shy," later I was "lacking self confidence," and finally I was "socially anxious." Like you, when I was diagnosed, it came as a major relief, since I now had an explanation that made sense. I quickly came to accept the diagnosis. What I have NOT accepted is the loss and missed things from not being diagnosed earlier, despite all the characteristics.

Look around, you will find a lot of commonality, as well as a lot of differences.
 
@LateToTheGame

As I understand your intro post, you have good reason to feel you're either unwell (PTSD, perhaps part of ADHD)) or different in significant ways (ASD, part of all of ADHD), and you also have reason to believe you may have been misdiagnosed.

IMO there's no good objective "classifying" definition of "high functioning" ASD. There are also various conditions that are statistically a lot more likely to present in people with ASD
(BTW I don't like the word "comorbid" because I don't believe the defining characteristic of (my kind of) ASD is an illness, but I don't mind other people using it :)

Back to the point of this reply: it probably won't be easy for you to figure out what you do and don't have, even with access to a large group of people who are ASD.

You should work on it OFC - "high-functioning Aspies" definitely don't all have PTSD or ADHD, so "ASD instead of the other two" is certainly a possibility.
But it probably won't be an easy or a fast journey.
 
Hello and welcome! There’s no too late or too early around here. Whenever you arrive, we are ready for you. Glad you found us. Let us know if you need any help figuring out the forum.
 
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